


A Sky Full of Mistakes

by micehell



Series: SEISyUN-ish world [2]
Category: Johnny's Entertainment, TOKIO
Genre: AU (SEISyUN-ish world), Action, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-27
Updated: 2011-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-11 12:20:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Ten minutes before they were supposed to go out, while they were doing the last check on weapons and supplies, Johnny-san came into their barracks, dragging a kid behind him.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sky Full of Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> About the series: I call this a SEISyUN-ish type world, in that it's kind of post-Robot Apocalyptic in character and it was heavily inspired by the PV (of course), but it's not the PV storyline. For one thing, the series sort of mirrors the time from when the guys would have first joined the agency in real life to a little past their debut (or it will when it's finished (whenever _that_ might be!) ;), so not the right timeline for the PV, plus I tend to like happier endings, oi. *snork*
> 
> About the story: This is the second story in the series based on where on the timeline it falls, and it's also the second one I wrote, but it's probably the best one to read first if you're interested in the series overall. It also can stand alone, so that works, too. ;)

On the back wall of the Jimusho’s central barrack were the rules. They were written on large sheets of poster board that had yellowing tape at the corners (and along the odd rips and tears that had appeared over the years). The print was in black, blue, red (whatever pen was available), and even green and purple (in crayon, from when there wasn’t even a pen around). Some of the rules were written in a strong, clear hand (mostly Mary’s work), and some were written in almost childish scrawl (mostly the juniors, and mostly when Mary wasn’t looking). But for all that it was an aging, scrawling (and not very easy to read) mess, the rules were still the core of the Jimusho, the thing that all of them knew by heart.

Rule number one was written in red, a bold script that dominated the wall, its peculiar mix of English letters and Hiragana as distinctive as the man behind them. It was the one rule you were never, under any circumstances, supposed to break: _You, come back alive_.

Rule number two was in black, the print small and a little smeared, written by someone whose best friend had broken the first rule (and who broke it himself just two days later): _If you can’t come back alive, make sure you take as many of them with you as you can_.

~*~

Ten minutes before they were supposed to go out, while they were doing the last check on weapons and supplies, Johnny-san came into their barracks, dragging a kid behind him. Gussan sighed when he saw him, but kept it to himself, knowing it would do no good to argue. They’d been scheduled with just their normal crew on that gig, but Johnny-san had been adding and subtracting people lately, looking for that ‘perfect’ mix, whatever that might be. But he was boss, so it wasn’t like anyone was going to complain… at least not where he might hear, anyway.

Gussan usually didn’t mind the additions. For all that he was never likely to see perfection the same way his boss did, the guys that came in were usually older recruits like him, or at least one of the not-too-much younger ones that he knew. It was easier when it was just Joshima, Taichi, Kojima, and Mabo going out with him, but if he wound up with Sakamoto, Nagano, or Inohara tagging along from time to time, at least he knew which way they were likely to jump when things went south. Which they usually did.

This kid, though, was nothing he knew, and nothing he wanted to, either. He was as tall as Gussan already, but there was no way that face belonged to anyone older than thirteen, and that was being generous. And while Johnny-san didn’t think that their group was up to the main gigs yet, he had acknowledged that the junior juniors didn’t belong with them either, keeping them in the younger groups that tended to pull milk runs instead. Less chance of one of the kids breaking the first rule that way, and a hell of a lot less chance of them screwing up from lack of experience and getting one of the others killed, too.

Johnny-san (canny as always) didn’t give them a chance to break the no complaining to the boss tradition, pushing the kid forward with a, “You, go with them.” He was already out the barrack door when he apparently remembered one last thing, and threw, “That’s Nagase, and he’s going out with you guys today,” over his shoulder as he marched back to his office.

Gussan was normally hard to anger, but he could feel it like a burn in his gut. To drop the kid on them was bad enough, but to do it this way was just asking for trouble. Which meant that this was buildup to some master plan that Johnny-san had going (and certainly wasn’t going to fill them in on), and it was a pain in the ass that it was always their group that got stuck with the short end of the Jimusho’s stick. Even as young as Shingo had been when Nakai got saddled with him, at least his group had had fluff assignments until Shingo’d been old enough to hold his own. But Joshima and Gussan? Yeah, they got a too young, too skinny, too likely to get them all killed kid, and a high risk mission to take out a Void armory.

When he saw that Nagase had the near panic look of a kitten in a kennel of dogs, Gussan made himself smile. He didn’t have the heart to take his anger out on the kid just because their boss had apparently decided to screw them all over. Taichi, however, didn’t have that problem. Snark his weapon of choice even over the explosives they’d sometimes find him fondling, he rolled his eyes and said, “Great, just great! What this gig really needed to make it special was a wet behind the ears recruit, probably fresh from the Crèche. Though with the way those arms drag the floor, maybe they recruited the gorilla straight out of the jungle.”

Gussan didn’t mean to, but he laughed at that. Nagase was at an age where he was all arms and legs, and the fact he was obviously going to be tall didn’t help make him look less awkward with it. He was also at an age where being made fun of was hard to take, and for the first time since he’d arrived he raised his eyes to meet Gussan’s directly, a _fuck you, too_ look clearly in them. Attitude was something Gussan normally hated, especially in the junior juniors, but he had to say that here it made him a little less worried; knowing that there was some fight under the too quiet exterior was good. The fact that the eyes dropped again almost immediately, Nagase just shrugging his shoulders as if it didn’t matter, was less so, but Gussan had had to deal with worse. Maybe.

If he hadn’t had his own crew on this, he’d probably figure it for a suicide run, but he’d been planning on just the five of them on the mission anyway, so as long as they could keep the kid out of it they should be okay.

Mabo (too sweet by half even if he did try to look tough) had got the kid a pack already and showed him where their supplies were. Nagase was competent packing it, at least, and obviously comfortable with both the Type 89 Para and the handgun he stowed away even before getting his rations. The rifle, even with the stock folded, looked too big for the thin frame holding it, a child playing grown up, but then it wasn’t like that wasn’t pretty much the truth anyway.

Gussan nodded at Leader when they were all ready. Leader (looking worried, but that wasn’t unusual either) took point, leading them out of the compound and out into a world that wasn’t really theirs anymore.

~*~

The armory was only about 100 miles inland. Before the invasion it would only have been a matter of hours to get to it, but since the Voids came, driving a car that wasn’t wired into their network was pretty much an open invitation to either arrest or execution, whichever seemed best to them at the time. Taking a train wasn’t much better, the tech built into the stations and train cars too good at spotting armament, even when disassembled.

If they’d had weapons waiting for them at the other end they could have risked the train, none of them having a notice out on them, but as it was they had no choice but to walk. Even at 40 miles a day they were pushing it, the weight of their packs (especially Taichi’s seemingly eternal arsenal of explosives) making it a hard go. Which meant three days of taking unmaintained, bomb-scarred back roads while still traveling as much by night as they could, trying to avoid the Void-monitored main roads and the watchful eyes of people who might not be all that sympathetic to their cause. It also meant three days of getting on each other’s nerves.

Taichi often had the inside track on irritation, a sharp tongue and no fear of using it not making for all sweetness and light. But Taichi’s snark was often a blessing, too, the humor that broke up the hard trek and made the others laugh even in the midst of being laughed at. Kojima could be a handful as well, especially when there were pretty girls around at any of the towns or villages they might stop in, but they were on a covert run this time, so there was no outside contact to distract any of them. Leader could often drive them crazy, especially Gussan and Taichi, with his mothering and his worrying, but he seemed oddly shy around the stranger with them, so it wasn’t too bad. Even Mabo and Gussan could be the ones; Mabo when he got too hyper and Gussan when he got in a mood to make them be more spit and polish, but both of those were rare enough.

This time the irritation was totally the new kid’s doing. Not by intention, like Taichi’s snark or Kojima’s flirting, but from no tongue at all, over ten hours into the mission and the most anyone had gotten out of him was _Yes, sir_ or _No, sir_ and the Jimusho’s version of name, rank, and serial number. It was all given with a respectful duck of the head and an almost desperate need to please, with the only completely voluntary things he’d say being offers to fetch and carry. But it was still irritating.

Gussan couldn’t say why Nagase’s need to ingratiate himself bothered him so much, but he knew he wasn’t alone, even Mabo giving up trying to be nice after the first couple of hours. Leader still clucked around the kid a little, but Nagase was apparently sharper than his current attitude would indicate, and he seemed to have figured out right away that Leader’s name didn’t mean the actual leader and had largely dismissed him (outside of the ongoing offers to help in whatever way he could).

The kid had also focused most of his attention on Gussan, obviously having pegged him as the boss. Which, really, was mostly true, though Gussan did defer to the others when it was their field of expertise; Mabo with his tech, Taichi with his explosives, Kojima with his seemingly endless stream of contacts wherever they went, Leader with the field-level doctoring. But right now the others were all looking to him to fix their new problem child and Gussan was at a loss of what to do.

Oddly enough the problem was solved by one of their more usual forms of irritation, more commonly known as Taichi’s tendency to want to blow everything up.

In one town (that was more dust and wind than building at that point), they’d come across odd piles of what looked like garbage, but that had turned out to be household appliances that someone had tried to sort through at one time, probably before the last stragglers were picked up for the camps. The piles were in order from _sort of still working_ to _can be used for scrap_ to _not even worth it for scrap_. It was the type of thing that was too tempting for Mabo to pass by, always looking for bits of electronics he could mesh into his own tech, jerryrigging up scanners and code runners and other oddly helpful if fragile-looking gadgets.

But while he was sifting through the piles looking for things to save, Taichi had come across an old robot vacuum in the _sort of still working_ pile and immediately decided it needed to be blown up. Gussan knew they should be as quiet as they could be, but the place was obviously long deserted and the sun wouldn’t be up for hours yet, so they’d have plenty of time to put distance between them and anyone who might actually hear the fireworks and decide to look. And after being saddled last minute with someone they hadn’t wanted, it wouldn’t hurt for them to blow off a little steam.

Taichi and the others would have been too young (or not even born yet in the case of their two youngest) to remember much of what happened Before the Voids came, but Gussan and Leader could remember bits of it. Pieces of a childhood where the hardest things they’d had to face was a father who hadn’t stayed and a father who it would have been better if he’d left. Even now Gussan could still remember the model Gundam fighter he’d had and how much he’d loved it, before the reality of mecha troops taking over the planet had tainted what had seemed harmless fiction before.

Remembering that, hearing Taichi solemnly inform Nagase that this was just practice for the vacuum’s larger cousins, Gussan had expected the explosion to be cathartic. But when Taichi’s cap blew, it set the vacuum off rather than destroyed it, servos squealing and the motor running in fits and wheezing starts, so that the vacuum spun and stopped, spun and stopped, a drunk on its way home from the office. Nagase was the first to laugh, like a monkey’s bray, which made the rest of them laugh even harder than they would have. Even Taichi ribbing him about not only looking like a gorilla but laughing like one too didn’t break Nagase’s smile.

Gussan hadn’t expected to gain anything more from Taichi’s trick than maybe a bit of stress release, but the laugh was the first real response they’d seen from the kid, the first thing they’d all had in common besides hate for the Voids and a reason to fight them. It wasn’t the same thing as knowing him, but it did at least let them finish the night’s walk in relative peace.

~*~

They bedded down for the day in an old barn, long disused but still smelling faintly of some kind of livestock. Even with the August heat all of them had slept like the dead in between their guard duty. Gussan had stayed awake for Nagase’s watch as well as his own, but the kid had been alert (if a little fidgety), the previously irritating silence now a good thing as he managed to do his rounds without waking the others, always listening for anything that might be approaching.

They had breakfast as the sun was just starting to dip down into the horizon, still plenty of time to recheck their supplies and weapons and to scout a little before they left. Nagase was still silent even then, but it was a softer one, more a matter of just not talking than trying to hide behind not saying anything.

It was Kojima’s silence that was worrying Gussan now. Until a couple of months ago he’d been as talkative as Taichi or Mabo, both of who were chattering like magpies as Leader doled out the rice and miso he’d made. But ever since they’d passed through that village on the other side of Haneda, with the burnt down shells of buildings and the mass grave in the town center full of more victims of fire… none of them had slept well that night, but Kojima had looked like he’d been hit. He’d never said who it was he’d known there, or what they’d meant to him, but it was obviously someone important, and the loss was still taking its toll.

What Gussan hadn’t understood while he worried was that Kojima’s silence was better than the alternative. He’d been lulled by the steady hum of the Trouble Twins’ breakfast talk and by the smile and thank you Nagase had given Leader when he’d offered him seconds. He hadn’t expected Kojima to start questioning things then, and certainly not with a tinge of hostility in his voice, as unlike the usually cheerful brat as the recent silence had been.

“Did you come from the camps?”

It was directed right at Nagase, but it was Leader who reacted most, his “Kojima!” full of censure. One of the rules of the Jimusho (a definitely not to be broken one) was not to ask about someone’s past. There were plenty of people the world over who wouldn’t speak of it, and in the resistance groups like the Jimusho… it was pretty much a guarantee you hadn’t been living a happy life before you joined.

Even Taichi was put out, shaking his head at his friend. “Learn how to read the atmosphere, dude!”

Nagase looked at Gussan, apparently checking to make sure he didn’t have to answer. That almost made Gussan laugh, since it wasn’t like the kid had answered much the day before. It was a good sign, though, that he just took the _no_ Gussan signaled him and went on with his breakfast, no hard feelings in sight.

It wasn’t such a good sign when Kojima tried to pretend he hadn’t seen the _come with me_ signal that had been directed at him, but he eventually got up and followed Gussan to a dim, musty corner of the barn that afforded them a little privacy. Not that the others wouldn’t know what was going on, but it saved a little face that way.

“We don’t ask that question. Ever. So why are you starting in on the kid now?”

Kojima wasn’t looking at him, staring at the moldy remnants of straw that littered the floor instead, but he did answer, voice small and unsure and also very unlike the guy Gussan had fought with for a year now. “He’s got the camps written all over him. The meek little mouse act and the stick figure physique and the way he wants to please so much. You know as well as I do that pretty much the only way out of the camps is either sell out or sell yourself, so you tell me which one he did?”

Nagase did have a lot of the camps about him, the desperate air of living in what was only a half-step away from a death sentence. Kids who were raised in the camps were sometimes so wild that they were more animal than human, so Nagase couldn’t have been there long if he ever was, but it did beg the question of how he’d got out if he had been.

That didn’t excuse Kojima breaking such an important rule, and Gussan wasn’t going to let him use what was only a guess as a way around that. “One, if Nagase was in the camps, that should only make him a better fighter, ‘cause you don’t come out of that without knowing how to protect yourself from people bigger and stronger than you are. Two, you know there’s no way that Johnny-san didn’t make sure that he wasn’t a collaborator when he joined. Three, the kid doesn’t seem to have that scared of his shadow look most of the ones that get passed to the brothels do, but even if he did get out that way, that’s not your business or mine. Four… even thinking he’s from the camps, you wouldn’t have broken that rule without a reason, so tell me what the hell’s going on with you now or I’ll leave you here to sit out the mission and you can explain to Okamuto why that was.”

Kojima shrugged and kicked at the straw he’d been staring at, but it was only token resistance. “That town we’d gone through… before….”

He trailed off, swallowing hard, but Gussan stepped in for him. “I remember. You knew someone there?”

A shaky nod of the head and then a deep breath. “Michiko, that was her name. She’d wanted me to leave the Jimusho. I… I thought about it.”

That made Gussan take a deep breath, a little startled that he hadn’t seen that coming. All those contacts of Kojima’s meant he spent a lot of time in the towns and villages, able to blend in enough that he’d never been caught. It shouldn’t be so surprising to him that Kojima might have been wanting the life he’d been playing in the fringes of, but it was. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Not that I know that she’s dead, not for sure, ‘cause… it was hard to tell who was who.”

They hadn’t looked all that closely, either, the smell driving them back. Michiko, whatever she’d been to Kojima, could still be alive. Seeing what had happened to the people around her, though, it might not be that good a thing for her if she were.

Gussan had been so caught up in finally hearing what had been bothering Kojima for months he almost overlooked that none of this explained the third degree he’d given Nagase. He hated to push it, but if he didn’t get the answer now, it might be a problem later on. “This has what to do with Nagase?”

Kojima nodded, not fighting it anymore. “Mary knew about Michiko. She was on my case about it before, all _it’s against the rules_ and _she’s just a hostage waiting to happen_. And then… then afterward she still wasn’t happy. I was pretty sure she told Johnny-san, too, but he never said anything. Not directly. But he’s been bringing in more people on the missions lately and I think… I think he’s looking for my replacement. If a wet behind the ears camp rat could be considered that -- you know, now that I think of it, that’s actually kind of insulting.”

Mary not being happy about someone breaking that particular rule Gussan could well believe. He wondered if her unhappiness about it after they found the town destroyed was because she wondered if it had been cause and effect. If Michiko had been trying to get Kojima to leave, she might not have been as discreet as she should have been and it very well might have gotten a lot of people killed. But Mary apparently hadn’t brought that point up to Kojima and there was no way Gussan was going to, especially not on a mission.

One thing he could do, though, was set his friend’s mind at ease. “I’m not saying Johnny-san isn’t looking to shake things up, but if he were honestly thinking about letting you go over breaking one of the rules, he wouldn’t have left you to go on missions while he tested the new people out. Instead of being here bothering me, you’d be on latrine duty like the idiot you are, and you know how much you love that job.”

Kojima laughed at that, a sound that was rare enough these days that the others all looked over at him. Everyone except Nagase, who was on his third bowl of rice and still going strong, apparently trying to fix that ‘stick figure physique’ all in one go.

Gussan pushed Kojima back towards them, saying, “Go apologize to the kid. And get us some breakfast before he eats it all.”

~*~

The newly waning moon was shining brightly on the second night of their trek when they literally tripped across a kid. He’d been standing in the road, nearly invisible even in the light of the mostly-full moon, quiet and still even after he’d been run into, looking like something the junior juniors would tell stories about when they tried to scare each other in the barracks at night.

Unlike Nagase, this kid truly was a child. About seven or eight, short and fragile-looking, with puppy eyes made even more noticeable by the thin, pinched face they were set in. He was like one of the porcelain dolls Gussan could remember his mother collecting Before. He was also dirty to a point that his skin looking brown and mottled, somewhat like the raggedy stuffed bear he carried. Even through the dirt and the sad, puppy eyes, it was obvious that he was at least half-way to crazy, two missing front teeth showing up clearly when he bared them in a growl that was disturbing and yet oddly cute at the same time.

He was out in the middle of nowhere, in one of the small no-grow zones that were scattered around the region, where the initial bombings from the Invasion had ruined the soil for anything but poison and the few straggling, never-die weeds that could still grow in it. He could just have been wandering away from the one of the communities further out, but from the look of him Gussan seriously doubted there was anyone taking care of the kid on any regular basis.

Normally they left the stray kids alone, letting the nearby towns take care of them, but this one was more problematic. He was wild and starving and as Taichi said, “Looking and acting like that, would anyone even take him in if they found him?”

Mabo being Mabo, he immediately voted to take the kid with them and then to drop him off at the Crèche on the way back. Leader was right with him, already searching his pack for something for the kid to eat. Candy was hard to come by away from the cities (which for those who lived off the Void grid, were far too dangerous to go to for something not necessary), but Leader could usually be counted on to have some small piece of something for emergencies.

While Leader tried to entice the Wild Thing to eat his dinner, Gussan thought it over. The kid might be a problem on the mission, but could they really leave him behind like this either? They could always use some of the tranqs they carried for emergencies to keep him quiet while they worked and then either drop him at the Crèche like Mabo wanted, or take him back to Johnny-san to figure out what to do with him.

He was turning to Taichi to ask what he thought when he felt the light touch on his arm, Nagase as quiet in this as he was in talking about himself. Their other kid didn’t say anything, just shook his head, the frown on his face telling Gussan that he thought this was a bad idea.

Even if it wasn’t words, it was pretty much the most Nagase had asserted himself since he’d been dropped on them, so Gussan was willing to at least listen, but he wouldn’t make the decision without knowing Nagase’s reasons. “Why? Why shouldn’t we take him with us?”

That got him a frustrated look, but the only explanation was, “Don’t. Just don’t.”

Taichi, not the most sympathetic of people himself, even when faced with kids, still argued. “What’s your problem? It’s just a kid, right?”

It was obvious that Nagase was fighting not to just clam up again, but he didn’t back down. “He isn’t _just_ a kid. Anymore than any of us are.”

Taichi snorted at that, willing to argue more, with Kojima and Mabo getting riled up right behind him, but Gussan signaled them to back down. He was going to have to work on Nagase’s communication skills, but Gussan could see the certainty in his eyes and he wasn’t one to ignore a warning when he heard it. He asked again, though, wanting more explanation if he could get it. “You sure? If we leave him, he’s likely dead. I don’t want to make that decision if you’re just guessing.”

Nagase looked at the kid hard, maybe double-checking for himself, but whatever he saw, he still shook his head. He was breathing harder and he wouldn’t look at them, but he finally told them what they needed to know. “Don’t. You were so worried I was from the camps, but you don’t even see it on him. They like to send them out booby-trapped with explosives, or they teach them to kill when the adults that feel sorry for them and take them in are asleep. Then the rest of the gang comes in and takes whatever they can scavenge and split it with the camp guards. Some of the gangs infect the kids with whatever’s sweeping the camps at the time, and then send them out to spread it around just for the hell of it.”

Taichi and Kojima backed down at that, hearing the voice of experience in Nagase’s voice and looking at the kid with wary eyes now. Mabo still wanted to argue, but Leader put a hand on his shoulder, whispering something to him that ended the fight even if it left Mabo unhappy.

A part of him still hated leaving a kid behind, but Gussan signaled them to move out, feeling a guilty relief that they wouldn't have to waste supplies on him when they didn’t have huge amounts themselves.

Even with Nagase’s warning and all the effort it had taken him to get it out, they still didn’t take it enough to heart. As tiny and thin as he was, the kid was fast. More than that, though, they were off-guard in a way they shouldn’t have been on a mission, even without the warning. Kojima couldn’t get out of the way in time when the kid swung his toy bear at him, moonlight barely glinting on the matte finish of the razors sewn into the threadbare arms and legs. The kid managed to swing the bear around again, getting a second strike in, and likely would have got a third hit in while the others struggled to get their weapons up and ready, but he was dropped by a short burst from Nagase’s rifle, each bullet on mark and making a mess of flesh and stuffed toy, as if both the kid and bear were bleeding.

Mabo looked stricken and Taichi looked sick (his aversion to seeing blood up close one of the reasons he preferred explosives to guns or knives), but Nagase didn’t look like much of anything as he helped Gussan hide the body at the side of the road while Leader played medic with Kojima.

They were covering up the blood with dirt and garbage when Leader finished bandaging Kojima up, the cuts painful but not too deep, even the ones on his face and neck (dangerously close to the artery) unlikely to leave scars.

Kojima looked at himself in the mirrored sunglasses Leader carried on missions (for reasons all of them were too afraid to ask) and tsked. “Kid obviously didn’t appreciate perfection when he came across it. Looks like I was in a tragic shaving accident.”

Mabo smacked the back of his head, obviously not ready to joke about it yet and looking at Nagase with the wariness he should have given the kid, but Gussan didn’t call him on it. If any of them survived this mission, they’d either learn to work together or not, depending on the boss’ whim. The time for them to decide whether friendship would be part of that deal was later, after the mission.

Gussan signaled Leader to take point as they moved out, leaving what could have been a much larger mistake behind them in the poisoned dirt.

~*~

The mission had started badly. The trip out hadn’t been good either. All things considered Gussan shouldn’t have been surprised when Mabo’s hack of the armory’s outer gate went south.

If the armory had been in a smaller compound, with just automated defenses, the alarm that got triggered would have been bad but salvageable. Taichi (with his usual overkill arsenal) could have blasted out the power source for the entire complex and still had enough left to take out the armory itself, and they could have been in and out before anyone could send in troops to catch them. It would have been messy and they might have had to lay low for a while until the search had died down, but it would have at least been a success if a qualified one.

Even with the larger compound, if the guards inside had been low level Void drones, that would have been worse, but still doable. The drones were faster than their bigger, more intelligent counterparts, usually manned by either ‘wiped humans who had been hardwired into the suits or fully robotic with no organic component at all, but they were easier to take down, too, not as well shielded against the tiny EMP pulse generator Mabo carried, and certainly less armored against their bullets and Taichi’s hand-made bamboo bombs. They could have taken out the guard and then been long gone before anyone figured out the alarm hadn’t been taken care of after all. It would have been hard and was far more likely to have led to casualties on their part, but it would have worked.

But their heat scans had shown non-suited human guards inside, and the compound was so large that Mabo’s jerryrigged scanner couldn’t differentiate between the heat signatures at that distance, the blips on the screen overlapped so that it was impossible to count the exact number, but still likely more than four times greater than theirs at least. Human guards that weren’t susceptible to EMP and outnumbered them to the point that there was little chance they wouldn't have heavy losses in any direct confrontation. And even though they had the security cameras on the gate on a loop so they couldn’t be seen and the guards would probably think it was a false alarm, they would still send a squad to check it out. Which meant they had maybe ten minutes before they had company and there was no way they could get the hack of the gate finished and plant the charges in that time… FUBAR didn’t even begin to cover it.

Kojima was looking at Gussan and biting his lip, weighing the odds. They’d come across no-suits before on a mission and Kojima had handled it by going in alone and giving them his _I’m just an idiot, don’t mind me_ smile while pretending he’d come to deliver a message from someone in whatever town was nearby. Between the fact that the guards were usually local and that Kojima always seemed to know someone wherever they went, plus what a very convincing idiot he made, Kojima had always been able to get them off-balance long enough for the others to come up from behind and surprise them.

But that was a Kojima that didn’t look like he’d been attacked by a razor-tipped toy, and there was no way he’d pass for _idiot messenger who accidentally tripped the alarm_ today. Gussan shook his head at him, not even letting him get it out. “Don’t. They’re not going to believe you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time, not looking like curse of the mummy. We’ll just fall back and rethink things.”

Taichi, voice of doom, said, “They’ll be on alert. If we don’t do something now, we’re not going to get the chance and the mission will be a scrub.”

Which was true, but Gussan had never been one of the gung ho types who believed every mission was worth breaking the first rule for. Before he could give the signal for the retreat, though, Nagase spoke up, umprompted and looking right at Gussan. “I can go. I can tell them it was a dare and that I hadn’t meant to set off the alarm. Even if they don’t buy it, they’ll still see a kid and not a real threat.”

It was a chance, if a risky one, and Gussan was weighing just how risky it was in his head when Mabo apparently got over his wariness of Nagase. “Anii, no! He’s just a kid!”

Which was funny coming from someone whose voice hadn’t even finished changing yet. But it was true. True for Nagase, true for Mabo, hell, Leader was the oldest and he was only twenty, so it wasn’t like any of them were exactly swimming in years. But while Gussan didn’t want to risk breaking the first rule for nothing, taking out the armory was still important. It was one of the most effective strikes they could make against the Voids, limiting the ammunition and the artillery that was used against the various resistance groups and anyone else who even _looked_ like they might be. If the kid could pull it off… the other kids might actually have a chance to pull off the mission, too.

There was no more time to debate it, anyway, their time running too short. It was either run like mad or stay and fight, and Nagase was already handing his rifle and pack over to Taichi, fluffing his hair into his face to make himself look even younger.

 _I hope it works_ was what Gussan thought, but all he said was, “Stay by the gate and act like you’re still trying to get in. If they figure out you know the alarm’s been tripped, it won’t matter how young you look, they’ll know it’s no kid’s dare. After they take you inside, Mabo’ll finish the hack and we’ll follow you in and take them out then. You just have to keep the act up for about five minutes or so and then duck when you hear me signal.”

They fell back into a stand of trees just outside the perimeter and left Nagase at the gate without much time to spare. The kid had barely gone into his _why won’t this gate open_ act when it did open, a squad of ten men swarming out and surrounding him, eyeing the area for anyone else that might be there.

The other people that were there weren’t going to be seen without a closer inspection and the guards were obviously not all that suspicious, not even bothering to do more than that cursory recce before they dragged Nagase back into the compound with them.

Gussan cursed the number of men in the squad even as he counted off seconds in his head, signaling the others to head back when a minute passed. Mabo started the hack back up as soon as he got there, too anxious and getting hyper with it until Gussan put a hand on his shoulder and told him to breathe. It didn’t calm him all the way down, but it did steady him enough to not make another slip.

They could hear the guards inside asking Nagase questions, so they hadn’t taken him too far, which was good for them. Gussan had to say that Nagase’s airhead act made Kojima’s look pale in comparison, but even with that, the leader of the squad was a little too keen with the questioning (which definitely wasn’t so good for them), and they all flinched when they heard what was obviously a slap.

Mabo stopped, looking at Gussan like he could magically fix things, but it was Leader who knelt down beside him, nudging him with his shoulder and saying, “You’ll help him by getting us in, not by worrying.”

Gussan agreed with Leader, but he still sympathized with Mabo. It was hard to be the one waiting instead of the one doing, harder when you could hear things that made you want to beat the hell out of someone.

Then one of the guards said, “He’s prettier than any of the whores who work the camp tents. Hell, he’s prettier than most of the high class ones down at the club. Maybe we should break him in since he’s just going to wind up in the tents, anyway,” and Gussan was reminded once again why he hated collaborators more than the Voids.

He’d already been considering ways to get inside and get Nagase out if Mabo couldn’t hack the gate when it hissed open, barely audible to them let alone the guards whose attention was all on the kid they were still slapping around. Gussan was through it like a shot, signaling Nagase to drop even as he took out three of the guards, their bodies dropping before Leader and Kojima even got off his first shot. The three of them took six more down before the guards could finish drawing their weapons.

Even with the signal, though, Nagase hadn’t been able to duck. The last guard, with the sergeant stripes on his collar that marked him as the squad leader, had been the one who was most suspicious, and he was the one that had one hand dug into Nagase’s hair, the other twisting the kid’s arm up behind his back, effectively holding him in place and using him as a shield.

Gussan cursed, but there was no way he could take the shot, too many variables, too many things that could go wrong to risk it. Leader didn’t have any better angle, even with trying to slip to the side to flank him while Mabo and Kojima ran up to cover Gussan from the other side.

But the sergeant had his back against one side of the inner gate, using it to shield himself from Leader like he was using Nagase against the rest of them. When Kojima started to edge closer, he twisted Nagase’s arm up a little more, laughing when they all took a step back, enjoying his power and knowing time was on his side. Eventually someone would want a report and come looking if they didn’t get one, so even without a weapon in hand he could still keep them at bay.

From Nagase’s face, it was clear the hold on his arm hurt like hell, but he was standing as still as he could, looking right at Gussan again. Gussan could almost hear him saying, “Take the shot,” the look was so intense.

As much as he didn’t want to do it, he had to admit the kid was right. It was take the shot or all of them were dead. But his heart was still trying to beat its way out of his chest as he sited down the rifle barrel, and he was remembering far too many practice shots that hadn’t hit the target he’d aimed for to have any kind of confidence.

The sergeant didn’t believe he’d shoot, just twisting Nagase’s arm up further. There was a slight pop that was drowned out by the moan Nagase tried to bite back, but the sergeant didn’t loosen his grip, saying, “You don’t put that rife down, I’m going to have to take the kid apart piece by piece.”

Gussan didn’t put the rifle down, but he could feel the sweat starting to drip into his eyes. His aim certainly wasn’t going to be helped by that, but he couldn’t ask one of the others to take the shot, not when it was his call.

Starting to get nervous now, the sergeant let go of Nagase’s hair, reaching for his gun, and Gussan could have kissed Nagase when he ducked his freed head, giving him the shot. But Gussan never got to take it, a bullet hitting the sergeant from behind, punching through his head to rain blood and garbage on his hostage, but not hitting anything it wasn’t meant to, Taichi’s aim good over short distances.

Gussan hadn’t seen Taichi during the whole mess, his attention focused on what was right in front of him, but he could see him now, grinning like mad as he perched in a tree right outside the armory’s perimeter, not even fifty feet away. He’d stowed his gun back in his pack and was trying to do a mini victory dance, but he settled for just raising his arms over his head when he almost fell out of the tree. Taichi didn’t use his gun much, favoring his precious explosives, but Gussan had drilled him on using it, not letting him whine his way out of it, until Taichi had been good enough to compete in the marksmen competitions they had on sports days. Gussan was so happy with the results of all that work right now that he could kiss the little bastard, too.

He really should have noticed that Taichi hadn’t followed them in, but he’d been distracted for obvious reasons. And while he usually hated when Taichi went off on his own during missions, not bothering to fill Gussan in when he was winging it like mad, in this case he thought he’d let it slide, slapping Taichi on the back when he made it down the tree and back inside. He’d have done more, maybe even got embarrassingly mushy, but they had a mission to complete.

He sent Taichi off to lay the charges, sending Kojima to back him up and telling Mabo to monitor the hack he’d made for any signs that someone was wondering where the guards were. It seemed like forever had passed, but it had been less than ten minutes, and Gussan hoped they’d get at least five more before they got hit by any more surprises.

Leader had already popped Nagase’s shoulder back in, feeding him some of low-dosage pain pills he carried for when they couldn’t afford to use the stronger ‘knock you out’ ones on a mission. Gussan nodded at Nagase, giving him a “Good job” and wanting to kiss the kid again when he blushed at the mild praise. He sent them both ahead to the trees they’d hid in before, but he stood guard at the inner gate just in case he was wrong about the surprises.

Taichi finished before there was any more trouble, still enormously pleased with himself. His grin faded when he saw the bruises forming on Nagase’s face, the red marks made more lurid by the blood that Leader hadn’t had a chance to clean up. The kid himself didn’t appear too upset by it, simply taking back his pack from where Taichi had left it, and hooking it over the shoulder that wasn’t in a sling. Maybe it was because he really was from the camps, where he’d have seen worse. Gussan knew (much as he hated it) that he’d certainly see worse if he stayed with them.

They headed out, Taichi periodically playing talking clock to let them know where the count stood. He reached zero as the not quite dawn sky lit up in the distance behind them. They could hear the pops and explosions as the munitions the armory had housed added to the chaos, and Taichi’s grin was back in full force as he stopped to admire his work.

The chance that anyone would follow them had pretty much been lost with the armory, so Gussan let him have the moment, all of them watching it with him like it was one of the fireworks shows Gussan could remember from Before.

They bunked down for the day in an old, traditional style house that had obviously been deserted for years. It had probably been an heirloom house at one time, but now it was just old and crumbling. It got them under cover, though, and away from any eyes that might be looking for them.

Oddly, the tatami mats were still in good shape, not even smelling too musty under their bedrolls. They put Nagase in the middle, Kojima right beside him, and the others on the outside. They were too close and it was too hot, the August sun beating down on the crumbling clay and wood, the fraying and torn rice paper shining white with it, but no one moved and no one complained and no one didn’t belong.

/story

**Author's Note:**

> A/N 2: In the timeline for this AU, this story takes place in the August before Nagase turns 13. That makes Mabo 14, Taichi is just about 17, Gussan is 19 and Leader is 20. ~~I have no idea how old Kojima is in RL, but I just assumed from the old clips that he and Taichi are close in age, so about 17 or 18.~~ Aha, so he was younger than I thought, so that makes him 14, too... which messes with my giant flirt/going off with the girl thing (though I guess an argument can be made for their maturing faster due to the circumstances), but I at least corrected out some of the tiny inconsistencies the age thing would have made, so it's not as bad as it could have been. ;)


End file.
